Michael's Mission E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

'...This will generate a struggle covering the face of the whole earth. The one and only remedy for this nonsense being made of human evolution will be the path that can lead humanity to the spirit – the path of Michael, which finds its continuation in the path of Christ.' – Rudolf Steiner. Speaking in the aftermath of the Great War, Rudolf Steiner presents a series of extraordinary lectures on the power and mission of the Archangel Michael. He paints on a broad canvas – in the context of cosmic and human evolution – revealing Michael's tasks in the past, present and future. Originally the countenance of Yahweh, Michael has metamorphosed from a 'night spirit' to a 'day spirit'. As 'the Countenance of Christ', Michael helps us find a balance between 'luciferic' and 'ahrimanic' tendencies. The old 'dualism' (such as good versus evil), says Steiner, needs to be replaced by the trinity of Lucifer-Christ-Ahriman. Filling our heart with the Christ Impulse creates an equilibrium between the luciferic influence that imbues our head and the ahrimanic influence at work in our limbs. Rudolf Steiner describes how humanity faces three dangers in the social sphere: spiritual life could flow into the 'pit of mendacity' ruled by Ahriman, individual rights might descend into the 'pit of selfishness' (Lucifer), and economics into cultural sickness and death (Asuras). In order to prevent European-American culture from perishing, it will be necessary to turn towards contemporary 'threefold' social ideas. Steiner also speaks about the principle of metamorphosis in connection with evolution and devolution, as evident in the design of the pillars in the newly-built Goetheanum. Architectural styles are an expression of human evolution, as can be seen in Greek temples, gothic Cathedrals, the Grail temple and the building at Dornach. Amidst many other themes, Rudolf Steiner addresses the problem of natural necessity and freedom, and the abolition of the trichotomy of body, soul and spirit at the Council of Constantinople in AD 869.

Leseprobe

MICHAEL'S MISSION

Revealing the Essential Secrets of Human Nature

MICHAEL'S MISSION

Revealing the Essential Secrets of Human Nature

Twelve lectures given at Dornach, Switzerland, between 21 November and 15 December 1919

TRANSLATED BY JOHANNA COLLIS

INTRODUCTION BY DAVID JONES

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS CW 194

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the generous funding of this publication by the estate of Dr Eva Frommer MD (1927-2004) and the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2015

Originally published in German under the title Die Sendung Michaels (volume 194 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Based on shorthand transcripts and notes, not reviewed by the speaker. This authorized translation is based on the latest available (fourth) edition of 1994 edited by Hella Wiesberger

Drawings within the text are by Leonore Uhlig and Assja Turgenieff, based on Rudolf Steiner's blackboard sketches reproduced in the Plate Section

Published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1994

This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 484 1

Cover by Mary Giddens Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

CONTENTS

Introduction, by David Jones

LECTURE 1DORNACH, 21 NOVEMBER 1919

Michael's power and Michael's mission in present-day culture. The contrast between the development of the head and the other parts of the organism. The significance of the numbers three and two in comprehending the world and the human being. Abolition of the trichotomy of body, soul and spirit at the Council of Constantinople in AD 869. The Christ Impulse as an impulse of balance between luciferic and ahrimanic tendencies.

LECTURE 2DORNACH, 22 NOVEMBER 1919

Regressive development of the head, progressive development of the other parts of the organism. Pre-Christian revelations: through the head as revelations of the day (Lucifer), through the other parts of the organism as revelations of the night (Yahweh). Michael as the countenance of Yahweh and his metamorphosis from a night spirit to a day spirit. Michael's task in the past and in the future: the Word becomes flesh, flesh becomes spirit.

LECTURE 3DORNACH, 23 NOVEMBER 1919

Luciferic and ahrimanic effects in the physical and the soul realm in connection with the development of the head and of the other parts of the organism. Michaelic thinking as a spiritual understanding of the human being and the world, for example through the true concept of development: development can be not only progressive but also regressive; for example in art there is in reality nothing one-sidedly beautiful but only the interaction between what is beautiful and what is ugly.

LECTURE 4DORNACH, 28 NOVEMBER 1919

The Mystery of Golgotha as the focal point of earthly evolution. Its interpretation through Greek thinking as the final remnant of ancient mystery culture. Medieval Scholasticism as the continuation of Greek thinking and a means by which the Mystery of Golgotha can be comprehended. The age of preparation for a new mystery culture since the fifteenth century. The need to fill the heart organization with the Christ Impulse in order to create a balance between the luciferic influence imbuing the head organization and the ahrimanic influence at work in the limb organization.

LECTURE 5DORNACH, 29 NOVEMBER 1919

Differences in the human soul during the various epochs of human development. The problem of natural necessity and freedom. Development of the concept of God from the fourth to the sixteenth century. The deed of Michael and the influence of Michael as an antithesis to the influence of Ahriman. The need for the Christ Impulse.

LECTURE 6DORNACH, 30 NOVEMBER 1919

The different ways in which the human being lives in post-Atlantean evolution as a being of the head and as a being of the other parts. Ancient yoga-culture (air processes in the soul) and new yoga-will (light processes in the soul). Attaining a new comprehension of pre-existence as the Michael culture of the future.

LECTURE 7DORNACH, 6 DECEMBER 1919

Head, breast and limbs in relation to thinking, feeling and will. How the elemental world becomes interwoven with the individual's destiny through a rhythmical repetition of experiences in the sphere of feeling. The interaction between events taking place in the limb system and the spiritual environment; the effect of this in subsequent incarnations. The pedagogical significance of this periodic return of events. The modern view of history and the Mystery of Golgotha. Declining earthly development and the future evolution of humanity.

LECTURE 8DORNACH, 7 DECEMBER 1919

Cultural development since the fifteenth century. The human being and the environment. The process of remembering as an interaction of the human being with the universe. The human being's lack of attunement with the kingdoms of nature and the lack of his inclusion in present-day natural-scientific knowledge. The irrelevance of scientific thinking to social renewal.

LECTURE 9DORNACH, 12 DECEMBER 1919

The forms of the Goetheanum. Dualism in life and in philosophy which ought to be replaced by the trinity of Lucifer-Christ-Ahriman. The principle of metamorphosis in connection with evolution and devolution as shown in the design of the pillars in the Dornach building.

LECTURE 10DORNACH, 13 DECEMBER 1919

Architectural styles as an expression of human evolution: Greek temples, Gothic Cathedrals, the Grail temple, the building at Dornach.

LECTURE 11DORNACH, 14 DECEMBER 1919

The degeneration and demise of culture. The outbreak of the 1914-18 war. Doing away with time by thinking and feeling backwards as a preparation for entry into the spiritual world. The nature of thinking and will in connection with necessity and freedom. The involvement of spiritual forces in the physical world in connection with the declining forces of the head and the vital forces of the rest of the organism. How the supersensible forces of Goethe play into our present-day earthly culture in three periods.

LECTURE 12DORNACH, 15 DECEMBER 1919

The chaotic interaction of spirit, state and the economy in the present time. The origins of the cultural, rights and economic life in the ancient mysteries of light, of space and of the earth. Initial approaches to a free life of the spirit and of rights in Central Europe through Goethe and Wilhelm von Humboldt. How the spiritual life flows into the pit of mendacity (Ahriman), the life of rights into the pit of selfishness (Lucifer), and the economic life into cultural sickness and death (Asuras). In order to prevent present-day European-American culture from perishing it will be necessary to turn towards the threefolding of the social organism.

APPENDICES

Introduction to the Lecture of 28 November 1919

Conclusion of the Lecture of 30 November 1919

Introduction to the Lecture of 7 December 1919

Notes

Rudolf Steiner’s Collected Works

Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner

Colour Plates

INTRODUCTION

The lectures included in this volume were given in November and December 1919. During the First World War and immediately after, Rudolf Steiner's activities were focused in Dornach around the building of the first Goetheanum. The centrepiece of the interior of the building was to be a sculpture carved by Rudolf Steiner and his co-worker Edith Maryon, known as ‘the Representative of Man’, with Christ at its centre. This work of art visualized the dynamic of forces through which the earthly development of humanity takes place. In this course of lectures—one of several given by Rudolf Steiner during this period in which he presents a spiritual account of human evolution—he explains the unique and essential effect made possible by the ‘Mystery of Golgotha’ in the development of humanity.

As part of this overview, Steiner refers to the philosophical work of Aristotle in relation to Socrates and Plato (see lecture 4). The ‘ethics’ of Aristotle presents a theory of the human being in which ‘nature’ develops a person only up to a certain point.* This, however, includes a number of ‘potential abilities’ that have become known as the Aristotelian ‘Virtues’ (for example, courage and temperance). These Virtues refer to human qualities that can only come to expression through free will and the ‘right judgement’ of the individual; for example, the ability to perceive the appropriate mean, in the case of courage, between rashness and cowardice. These are moral skills that, like other skills, have to be developed and practised.

According to the above view, there is no natural necessity for human beings to fulfil their complete developmental potential. Good judgement of the given circumstances, and a correctly practiced initiative, is required to exercise each type of virtuous action, without the lapse into the ‘too little’ or the ‘too much’. ‘Nature’ provides us with the materials through which we can complete our development, but the actual fulfilment of human completion, or eudaimonia, is dependent upon our own freely chosen action.

Rudolf Steiner presents a broader context of human evolution and development which might be seen as analogous to that presented by Aristotle more than two thousand years previously. Human development has passed the point that is provided by outer nature. The remainder of Earth evolution depends upon the individual, inner spiritual activity of human beings.

Steiner describes two quite different impulses in human evolution, whose effects appear on the outer stage of human history, for which he uses the historical names ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Ahriman’. Both of these can be viewed from the aspects of cosmic-spiritual events, cultural history, and the personal experience of the soul in the current stage of human development. Steiner presents them as essential for the progress of human evolution, provided that they can be held in balance. This is similar to the way that each person makes use of both their left and right sides, in order to progress in a chosen direction. This coordination and balance is only possible with the use of another force that provides a higher perspective, over and above that of the other two, and thereby is able to make use of them without falling to either side.

These lectures do not have the introductory character of Rudolf Steiner's public presentations. Rather, they presume prior knowledge of anthroposophy—of a good and detailed acquaintance with the spiritual world conception set out in the author's basic books. However, they are integral to the development of a clear picture of the being and activities of the Archangel Michael within the context of the cosmic and human evolution that is set out in Rudolf Steiner's book Occult Science, An Outline, particularly chapters 4 and 6. Out of this cosmically broad context, the nature and activities of different spiritual beings are characterized through a description of the roles they play in the development of human nature during our present epoch.

The simplistic moral dualism of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’, that often shapes the judgement of modern consciousness, is contrasted with an altogether more subtle and nuanced account of human development. For instance, if each individual person did not possess the possibility of being selfish, then no deeds would be free and all actions would be determined. If knowledge was never restricted and narrow, but rather always true and complete, then no new individual perspectives could be added to the existing cosmos. It is only through the discovery of a third ‘imperative’—that Rudolf Steiner identifies with what he calls the Christ Impulse—that human beings can hold in balance the two kinds of one-sidedness. Otherwise, such one-sidedness would propel us away from further human development. Each of the two potentially negative tendencies are necessary for the advancement of free actions and rich, multiple and individualized perspectives of experience and knowledge. This virtuous power of the Christ Impulse to keep balance is not by a cancellation of the two opposing forces, but by a dynamic interaction. That virtue, like those of Aristotle, is also one which nature does not automatically provide to human beings. Each person can only discover and participate in such a virtue freely, towards the further completion of human development.

David Jones, October 2015

* See Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Oxford 2009.

LECTURE 1

DORNACH, 21 NOVEMBER 1919

OVER the coming days I shall be speaking about how we human beings of the present time have the opportunity to form a relationship with that spiritual power about which it can be said that as the power of Michael it is able to intervene in spiritual and thus also in all other events on the earth. Today it will be necessary to prepare for what we shall be saying. We shall have to approach the subject from various points of view which will make it possible for us to give a proper account, on the basis of the symptoms we see all around us, of the different interventions emanating from the power just mentioned. In order to speak in all seriousness about the spiritual world we must remember always to pay attention to what is visible in the physical world in the shape of revelations from the spiritual powers. One must endeavour to penetrate, as it were, the veil of the physical world in order to reach what is at work in the spiritual world. What is present in the physical world can be observed by any one of us; what is at work in the spiritual world then helps us solve the riddles posed by the physical world. The important thing is to develop a real sense for the riddles posed by the physical world. In these important matters entirely serious attention must be paid to what I have been saying during the period of time that has preceded these current lectures.1 One cannot apply one's personal views about the world when endeavouring to reach a true understanding of something that involves not only humanity as a whole but indeed the whole world as such. One must divest oneself of merely personal interests. The best way for us to gain an understanding of our task in the world and of how we can be of value there is to free ourselves from what is personal in the narrower sense.

As you know, our evolution, the evolution we understand to be that of the earth, was preceded by another evolution, so that in fact we find ourselves planted firmly within an entire cosmic evolution. You know, firstly, that this evolution is progressing and that it has reached a point beyond which it will continue to develop further, towards more advanced stages. And, secondly, you also know that when we consider the world as such we are involved not only with the beings we encounter here on earth, those of the mineral, animal, plant and human kingdoms, but also with entities who stand above those kingdoms, whom we have described as beings of the higher hierarchies. Whenever we speak about evolution as a whole we have to pay attention also to those higher hierarchies.

These beings in their turn also evolve. The analogy of our own human evolution and of the other kingdoms of the earth can help us understand this. Please consider how we human beings have made our way through a Saturn, a Sun and a Moon evolution and have now arrived on our Earth. Looking at our cosmic evolution in this way, we can say that in our present, earthly surroundings we now find ourselves in the fourth stage of our evolution.

When we consider the beings who are at the stage immediately above our own human stage, the Angeloi, we can say of them, simply as an analogy: Although their forms are entirely different from those of human existence and although we cannot perceive them with our physical human senses, they have reached the evolutionary stage of Jupiter.

And as for the Archangeloi we see that they are at the evolutionary stage which humanity will have reached on Venus. And the Archai, the Spirits of Time, those beings who have a very special significance for us in our earthly evolution, have meanwhile progressed to the Vulcan stage of evolution.

This now brings us to the meaningful question concerning the next higher class of beings, those belonging to the hierarchy of the Spirits of Form. If we ask what stage these Spirits of Form have reached, we have to say that they have moved beyond what we as human beings can discern as the Vulcan evolution, beyond what we can as yet conceive of as our future evolution. These Spirits of Form have reached a stage beyond the seven stages of which we can have any understanding and they are now at the eighth stage of evolution. We can say that while we human beings are now at the fourth stage of evolution, the Spirits of Form are at the eighth stage.

But we cannot imagine this sequence of evolutionary stages as happening one after the other, for we must realize that everything is jumbled together. Just like the atmosphere surrounding and penetrating the earth, the eighth sphere of evolution to which the Spirits of Form belong penetrates the sphere in which, as human beings, we find ourselves at present. So let us now look closely at these two stages of evolution.

As human beings we are now in a sphere which has reached the fourth stage of evolution. But, while initially ignoring everything else, we also find ourselves in the kingdom which the Spirits of Form consider to be theirs, yet which is all around us and within us too. We can now consider the human being in his development. We have frequently made distinctions between the various components of this human being. We have differentiated the head development from the other aspects of the human being's development. We also divide the rest of the development into that of the breast and that of the limbs but we shall ignore this further division for the present. For now let us take the standpoint that the human being consists of everything belonging to the head and everything present in the other parts of his makeup.

If you see this [drawing (Plate 1)] as a picture, you can think of the surface of an ocean in which the human being is wading and moving forwards, with only his head above the surface. This is of course only a picture, but it shows the present situation of the human being. Everything in which the head is rooted would have to be counted as belonging to the fourth stage of evolution, while that in which he is wading or swimming forward would have to be described as the eighth stage of evolution. The remarkable fact is that with his head the human being has, in a way, grown beyond the element in which the Spirits of Form unfold their own specific being. With regard to the formation of his head, the human being has become, you might say, emancipated from what is fully impregnated by the characteristics of the Spirits of Form.

Only by fully understanding this can one truly acquire an understanding of the human being. Only through this can one fully grasp the special status the human being has in the world. Only on this basis can we rightly grasp the fact that although the human being senses a certain creative influence within himself that emanates from the Spirits of Form this influence reaches him not through the capacities of his head but through the effect the other parts of his organism have on his head. As you know, we breathe and, speaking in ordinary physiological terms, our breathing is connected with the circulation of our blood. Our blood is also driven up into our head. In this way our head lives in an organic connection with the other parts of our organism. It is nourished and enlivened by the rest of our organism.

You must distinguish clearly between these two facts. The one is that the head is in direct contact with the outside world. When you see something, you are seeing it with your eyes. This is a direct connection between the outside world and your head. But on the other hand, when you consider how your head lives through the breathing process and the circulation of the blood, you see how the blood shoots up into your head. Here there is no direct link between your head and the environment, but only an indirect one.

Of course you shouldn’t be pedantic about this and say that we inhale the air we breathe through our mouth, so breathing also belongs to the head. That is why I said that this is only a picture. Organically, what we inhale through our mouth is not really connected with our head; it belongs to the other parts of our organism.

The basic concept here is that we are living in two spheres: firstly in the sphere into which we have been placed by having undergone the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, so that we have now arrived at the Earth evolution and are thus at the fourth stage of our evolution; and secondly we are also living in a sphere which belongs to the Spirits of Form in the same way that the Earth evolution belongs to us while our head is excluded from it, the other parts of our organism with all our sense impressions exist in this eighth sphere. Once you have taken all this into account you will have some basis upon which to consider what is to follow.

But first I want to mention yet other concepts to contribute to this basis. Further necessary influences to be considered are the beings who also participate in world events, as I have often mentioned: the luciferic and the ahrimanic beings. Let us look first at what one might call the most external elements belonging to the luciferic and ahrimanic beings. Together with us they inhabit the spheres which we also inhabit. In considering the most external characteristics of the luciferic beings we have to regard them as possessing those forces which we human beings feel when we want to give way to fantasy in a one-sided way, when we enter into visionary reverie, when—speaking in pictures—we want to fly up beyond the confines of our head. When as human beings we want to rise up beyond our head, the forces in our human organism that play a part in this are the universal forces of luciferic beings. Imagine beings entirely formed out of something in us which strives to rise beyond our head. These are those luciferic beings who have a certain relationship with our human world. And now think the reverse; think of everything that presses us down into the earth, wanting to make of us sober Philistines and causing us to develop materialistic attitudes which fill us with dry intellectual ideas and so on. These are the ahrimanic powers.

All these things, which I have mentioned more from the angle of the soul, can also be expressed in a more bodily way. One can say: The human being is always in a kind of central position between what his blood wants to do with him and what his bones want to do with him. The bones perpetually want to rigidify us; in other words they constantly want to harden us and make us ahrimanic in our body too. Blood, though, wants to drive us out of ourselves. Pathologically speaking: Blood can become feverish, so that the human being is also driven organically into the realm of fantasy. And the bones can envelop the whole organism in their nature, making the human being bony and sclerotic, as happens to almost all of us in old age to some extent. That is when the human being carries the death-bringing element within himself: the ahrimanic element. One could say that everything in the blood tends towards the luciferic, and everything in the bones tends towards the ahrimanic, while the human being holds the balance between them; from the point of view of the soul he must hold the balance between too much sentiment and too much sober philistinism.

In a certain way we could also characterize these two beings more profoundly. When we consider what is interesting for the luciferic beings in matters of the cosmos, we find that their main interest is to make the human world disloyal to those spiritual beings whom we should consider to be the creators of humanity and the human world. The luciferic beings want nothing other than to make the world stray from the divine beings although not, in the first instance, in order to take over the world for themselves. From various comments I have already made about the luciferic beings you will understand that this is not their main aim. For them the main aim is to disengage the world from that which the human being feels to be his own divine beings, to keep the world free of these.

The purpose of the ahrimanic beings is different. It is their firm intention to bring the human realm, and thus the rest of the earth, into their own sphere of influence, to make it, and especially first of all the human beings, dependent on them. Whereas the luciferic beings have always been and still are intent on making human beings defect from what they sense to be their own sphere of divinity, the ahrimanic beings tend more towards capturing humanity together with all that is related to it and integrating it into their sphere of influence.

Thus there is in our cosmos, the cosmos with which we as human beings are interwoven, a battle between the luciferic beings who are perpetually striving for freedom, for universal freedom, and the ahrimanic beings who strive unceasingly for power and strength. This battle, which is all around us, permeates everything. So now I ask you to retain the second idea that is important for our considerations. The world in which we live is permeated by luciferic and ahrimanic beings, so that there exists the tremendous contradiction between the liberating tendency of the luciferic beings and the urge of the ahrimanic beings to exercise power.

Once you pay attention to this, you will say to yourself: I can properly comprehend the world only when I look at it in relation to the number three. On the one hand there is everything that is luciferic, and on the other everything that is ahrimanic. And between the two is the human being as the third element, who cannot help but create a balance between the two in sensing his own divinity. We can only reach an understanding of the world if we take this trinity as the basis and realize clearly that our human life is like the balancing beam of the scales [drawing]. Here is the balancing beam, and on this side is one pan of the scales, the luciferic one, pulling upwards. And here, on the other side, is the ahrimanic one, dragging downwards. What maintains the balancing beam in the horizontal position is the being of man.

Initiates who understood such mysteries in the past always maintained, with regard to human evolution, that the world existence into which humanity has been placed can only be comprehended on the basis of the number three. In its basic structure it cannot be comprehended on the basis of any other number. Speaking in our language, we may therefore say that in world existence Lucifer represents one pan of the scales and Ahriman the other, while between them the balance is maintained by the Christ Impulse. [Plate 2]

One might well imagine that the luciferic and ahrimanic powers would be rather interested in hiding this mystery of the number three. After all, a proper understanding of this mystery of the number three would enable human beings to bring about a balance between the ahrimanic and the luciferic powers. In other words on the one hand they would be free to use what is luciferic for the good of cosmic aims, and on the other hand the same would be the case with regard to what is ahrimanic. The most normal spiritual state of mind for the human being consists in entering in the right way into this threefoldness, this trinity of the world, this world structure in so far as it is based on the number three.

As we shall consider in more depth tomorrow and the next day regarding influences which are brought to bear on human spiritual and cultural life, there was and is a strong tendency to confuse human beings with regard to the significance of the number three. There is a strong tendency to bamboozle them with regard to what we may truly call this sacred number three. In more recent human culture we can observe very clearly how this structuring in accordance with the number three has come to be almost entirely obliterated by the number two.

Just consider, as I have frequently discussed here, that even to understand Goethe's Faust rightly one has to know how confusion regarding the number three plays into this great drama about the world. If in his day Goethe had fully understood the true situation, he would have confronted Faust not only with Mephistopheles who, as we know, represents the ahrimanic power, but also with the luciferic power. Then Lucifer and Mephistopheles would both have appeared in Faust. I have frequently explained this here. If you study Goethe's Mephistopheles character you will see clearly how Goethe everywhere mixes together the luciferic and ahrimanic elements in the character of Mephistopheles. In Goethe's work the figure of Mephistopheles is a compound of two elements. He is not a uniform character. Luciferic and ahrimanic elements are thoroughly mixed together. I have gone into this more deeply in my booklet about Goethe's Faust.2

This confusion, which also played its part in Faust, is the result of a delusion which has taken hold in more recent times—things were different earlier on—that the number two is applicable in place of the number three: good on the one side and evil on the other, God and the devil.

Please remember, therefore, that to gain any insight into the structure of the world we must take account of the number three, where the luciferic and the ahrimanic elements are in opposition to one another and where the divine element of God consists in holding the balance between the two. In opposition to this we have the mistaken illusion of the number two which has entered into humanity's cultural development: God and the devil, with the divine powers above and the diabolical ones down below. The human being has been as though squeezed out of the balance by having had concealed from him the fact that the true salvation of world understanding lies in a proper comprehension of the number three and by having been shown instead that the structure of the world is governed by the number two. Despite everything, even the best human endeavours have fallen prey to this error.

If we want to enter into this matter, we must do so very much without any prejudice; we must absolutely place ourselves out there in the sphere where there is no prejudice. And then we must also make a clear distinction between things and names. We must not be tempted to assume that by having given a being a specific name we have already gained a full sense of what that being is.

When we look at those beings whom we should feel to be divine beings for humanity, we must realize that we can only have a true sense of who they are when we think of them as holding the balance between the luciferic and the ahrimanic principle. In seeking the divine, we shall never fully find it if we do not enter properly into this matter of threefolding. Look at Milton's poem Paradise Lost or Klopstock's Der Messias which was influenced by Paradise Lost.3 These show no true comprehension of a threefold universal structure; they tell of an assumed battle between heaven and hell and in this way contribute to bringing the delusion of a duality into our cultural development. Here we have the illusion of a combat between heaven and hell being brought into our popular culture by two universally known more modern poems.

There is no point in the way Milton or Klopstock speak of the beings of heaven as divine beings. They can only be what human beings should know as divine beings if the foundation on which they stand is the threefold structure of the world. Only then would one be able to say: Here is a battle between the good principle and the evil principle. But as things stand, goodness is attributed to a duality, with names taken from what is actually divine and given to beings who are devilish, who are an anti-divine element. What is the consequence of this in reality? This actually amounts to nothing less than pushing the divine out of our consciousness; the luciferic element is given the name of the divine, so that the battle is between Lucifer and Ahriman, with Ahriman being accorded luciferic characteristics while the divine characteristics are attributed to the realm of Lucifer.

This shows us how momentous such a view can become. A confrontation such as that shown in Milton's Paradise Lost or Klopstock's Messias is said to be a conflict between divine and diabolical elements, whereas in truth it is about the luciferic and the ahrimanic element. There is no awareness of a truly divine element but instead the divine names are attributed to the luciferic element.

Milton's Paradise Lost and Klopstock's Messias are spiritual creations arising out of more recent human consciousness. What takes place in these works belongs to the general consciousness of humanity. The illusion of the number two has taken up residence in more recent human consciousness while the truth of the number three has been puhed into the background. Profound creations emanating from humanity in recent times, which with some justification are regarded as being among the greatest productions of these times, are a cultural maya, a great delusion which has arisen out of recent humanity's great delusion. What is at work in this illusion is basically a creation emanating from ahrimanic influences, those influences which will one day come to full concentration in the incarnation of Ahriman about which I have already spoken to you.4 This illusion in the midst of which we find ourselves is nothing other than the result of that false view of the world, which has been making its appearance everywhere in recent civilization, and which places heaven into opposition with hell. Heaven is looked upon as being divine while hell is seen as being diabolical, whereas on the one hand it is the luciferic elements that are termed divine while on the other the ahrimanic elements are termed diabolical.

We need only consider what interests have come into play during more recent cultural history. Even the threefold ordering of the human organism, or indeed of the human being as a whole, was abolished in a certain sense by the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the year 869.5 The dogma was established that Christians must believe not in the threefold but in a twofold being of man. Belief in body, soul and spirit was frowned upon, and medieval theologians and philosophers, who still knew a great deal about the truth, had great difficulties in getting around this because belief in body, soul and spirit was declared a heresy. They were obliged to teach the dichotomy: the human being consists of body and soul, not body, soul and spirit. And this is why replacing the trichotomy with the dichotomy makes such an immense difference for human spiritual life, as certain individuals know only too well.

One must face up to such depths if one wants to understand what the Jesuit, Father Zimmermann, is referring to in the November issue of Stimmen der Zeit.6 It states that a recent decree promulgated by the Council of Rome prevents Catholics from receiving absolution after confession if they read or possess theosophical writings or participate in any way in theosophical matters. This Jesuit father interprets that article in Stimmen der Zeit, which used to be known as Stimmen am Maria-Laach, as a specific reference to my anthroposophy, so that everything ought to be done to prevent Catholics who want to be regarded as genuine Roman Catholics from occupying their minds with anthroposophical literature. One of the main reasons given is that the human being is seen to consist of body, soul and spirit, in other words that we teach something heretical, since the proper belief consists in regarding the human being as having a body and a soul.

I mentioned just now that the distinction between body and soul has come upon modern philosophers without their being aware of this. They think they are conducting unprejudiced scientific thought, they genuinely believe that observation has shown them that the human being consists of body and soul. Yet in actual fact all they, too, are doing is following that dogma which has entered into more recent scientific development. What is nowadays regarded as science is actually entirely dependent upon ways of thinking which have been imposed during the course of more recent human evolution. Do not imagine that the few kind words you feel you ought to address to these people will convert their conviction that anthroposophy is a heresy or that you can persuade them to regard anthroposophy sympathetically. Anthroposophy must find its own way into the world without protection from any other powers however strongly Christian they may consider themselves to be. Anthroposophy can only achieve through inner strength what it is intended to achieve in the world.

You must remember that the Christ Impulse can only be comprehended if it is regarded as the impulse of balance between what is ahrimanic and what is luciferic, if it is properly installed within the trinity. What is it that can be done, one might ask, in order to mislead people regarding the true Christ Impulse? One would have to distract them from the true structure of the world based on the number three and lead them instead to the illusion of the number two which is solely justifiable in matters that are outwardly manifest but not in matters that lie hidden behind what is outwardly manifest but are present in the sphere of truth.

We must begin to realize that in such matters one has to progress beyond mere names. Merely by using the name of Christ does not mean that we have properly characterized the Christ. And one can prevent the Christ from being properly characterized solely by being named if one puts the number two in the place of the number three. If someone wanted to steer people away from a proper conception of Christ that person would merely need to put the number two in the place of the number three. So if the Christ Impulse is to be spoken of in the true sense, then it is necessary to replace the number two by the number three.

There is, though, no need as of today to condemn people on account of their heresy. You do not have to describe Milton's Paradise Lost or Klopstock's Messias as infernal writings of the devil, for you can of course still enjoy the beauty and greatness of these writings. But you must be clear about the fact that such works, in so far as they represent the flower of popular human civilization, have absolutely nothing to say about Christ. Such writings are based on the erroneous assumption that whatever does not comply with human evolution has to be counted among what comes from the devil, while on the other hand one also has what is divine. No! All that one has is something luciferic. And if one then writes about a ‘lost paradise’ one is in reality describing the expulsion of mankind from the realm of Lucifer into the realm of Ahriman. So what is being described is not the yearning of mankind for the divine but the yearning of mankind for the realm of Lucifer. What you are seeing in Milton's Paradise Lost and in Klopstock's Messias are descriptions of humanity's longing for the realm of Lucifer. And this is all you should see in them.

Certain ideas that have been taken up by modern humanity are therefore very much in need of reassessment. In preparing seriously to think and feel anthroposophically, we are today not faced by small decisions but by momentous ones. We are faced with having to take very seriously something frequently said by Nietzsche.7 His words about the reassessment of certain values must be taken very, very seriously. What humanity has achieved in recent times will have to be very much reassessed.

There is no need, however, to condemn heretics out of hand. We continue to perform scenes from Goethe's Faust8 and I have devoted decades to the study of Goethe.9 You will read in my small book Goethes Geistesart that this has not blinded me to Goethe's wrong characterization of Mephistopheles. But merely to say that Goethe's Mephistopheles is wrong, so let's get rid of him, would be rather a narrow-minded reaction. That is how those who pronounce judgement on heretics behave, and as modern individuals we ought not to place ourselves in this position. On the other hand, though, we should not take the easy way out by allowing the newer pronouncements of general cultural life to become ingrained in us. It will be necessary for humanity to learn a very great deal. We shall have to revalue many things.

All these things are bound up with the mission of Michael in regard to those beings of the higher hierarchies with whom he, in his turn, is connected. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow we shall have more to say about how we may comprehend those impulses which radiate from him into our human existence on earth.

LECTURE 2

DORNACH, 22 NOVEMBER 1919

I spoke yesterday about the error which has entered into our present cultural life while having as yet been correctly comprehended by only a few individuals. From what I said you will have sensed that in drawing attention to this error we have arrived at a very important point regarding the views expressed by spiritual science. For a fruitful development of humanity's spiritual and cultural life it will be essential for us to gain clarity in this matter. I drew your attention to cultural phenomena such as Milton's Paradise Lost and Klopstock's Messias which have arisen out of general popular thinking in recent centuries. I also pointed out the dangers with which human soul life is confronted through the artistic and cultural excellence that imbues such works if people do not see beyond this in order to reach a proper concept of God and thus also of Christ rather than being led astray by a conception of spiritual life based only on the number two.

By perceiving only a duality of good on the one hand and evil on the other, people have fallen into the error of attributing all evil to what we have come to call the luciferic and the ahrimanic. They have failed to notice that two universal elements have become conflated. As a result it has come about that the luciferic element was pushed to the other side, to the side of the good, so that in worshipping the divine and in recognizing the divine we spoke of God while mingling that name with the luciferic element. That is why it has become so difficult in our time to reach a clear concept of the Christ Impulse within human and world evolution.

Through the culture of centuries, the recognition of this duality has led us to speak on the one hand of the soul and on the other of the body, the bodily nature. And we have lost the connection between the images which tell us what is soul-spiritual and those which tell us what is bodily. Nowadays when we, and especially our academic psychology, speak of our thinking and will, of our soul-nature and feeling, we are merely playing with the sounds made by words. We do not attain any real inner, content-filled idea of the element of soul. And on the other hand we speak about what is matter devoid of any spirit, about something soullessly materialistic; we as it were knock upon this externally hard, calcified, soulless matter and are unable to build any bridges across to the element of soul.

What is spiritual has everywhere fallen apart and become two elements; and what is bodily is at the same time something spiritual. We cannot reach a bridge between what is bodily and what is spiritual by merely theorizing. And because we are unable to achieve this, our whole way of thinking scientifically has acquired this characteristic of a dichotomy between what is of the body and what is of the spirit or soul. Or we could put it like this: On the one hand the various belief systems have ended up pointing to a spiritual element without being capable of working out how this spiritual element enters into what is bodily and physical, how it works creatively upon what is bodily and physical; and on the other hand a soulless knowledge, a soulless view of nature views the body in a way which renders it incapable of seeing through the bodily processes and finding beyond these a spiritual and soul element at work.

Observing from this point of view how present-day science has evolved during the nineteenth and on into the twentieth century, one has to say: Everything we see here reveals itself as a consequence of what we have just been describing. By adding up everything that can be derived from the various aspects we have been discussing here, we shall be able to reach a full comprehension of the misapprehension which today hides what is right.

We speak today about a human being as though he were a homogeneous entity, without taking any account of whether we mean the soul element or the bodily element. We speak today of the soul element as of a unitary entity, and we speak of the bodily element as of a unitary entity. And yet, everything we have been discussing will have shown you that there is above all in the human being a great contrast between what goes into making up his head and—without just now going into all the details—what he has within him apart from his head. [The right-hand part of the drawing is drawn (Plate 3).] When asking about how the human being has evolved our questions must be quite different with reference to his head from the questions to be asked with reference to the rest of his bodily development.

When we observe the formation of the human head—now entirely in its bodily nature—with regard to what it contains for perception by means of the senses and also for thinking and imagining, we have to look far back into the cosmic evolution of the human being. We here have to say: What is now expressed in the formation of the human head has taken a long time to be developed and transformed. It has been developing during the time of Old Saturn, during the time of Old Sun, during the time of Old Moon and now even during the time of Earth evolution. But this is not the case with regard to the other parts of the body. It would be an utter mistake to look for a uniform history of the development of the human being as a whole. So we say [drawing continues (Plate 3)]: The formation of the head points backwards to previous planetary stages of Earth's evolution, the Moon stage, the Sun stage, the Saturn stage. The final result now arrived at by the development of the human head reaches far back into the past. But in order to add the other parts of the human being we cannot return to the Saturn stage, for here we have to say: What the human being has within him apart from his head can be traced back at most, in so far as the formation of the chest is concerned, to the planetary Moon stage [the vertical dividing line is drawn]. And as far as the limbs are concerned, they only arrive during the formation of Earth.

We only observe the human being correctly if we make a comparison as follows. Please note that a comparison is meant. Hypothetically it would be very easy to imagine, on account of some organic situation or other in the cosmos, on account of some adaptation or other connected with the conditions for growth, how the human being then adds new members. But you would not be tracing the human being as a whole right back to the earlier evolution. You would be saying that one must go back to a certain point where this member or that member was added. We are tempted to think like this because purely in the matter of external size the other parts of the human being together are larger than the head. But the truth is that the formation of the head reaches further back, while the other parts represent later developments. Indeed, when speaking of a connection between the human being and the world of animals in the matter of evolution one can only say that what exists in the human head points back to a former animal evolution. The human head is a transformed animal development, a very much transformed animal shape.